The indications that a new entry in the Friday the 13th franchise is finally starting to move forward keep stacking up. Producer Roy Lee, whose name was first attached to Friday the 13th back in 2018, recently said he thought we’d be hearing news on the project by the end of the year. Franchise producer Sean S. Cunningham (who directed the original film) mentioned on his Cameo page that a 13th Friday the 13th movie is “scheduled for next year”. And now the franchise’s home studio New Line Cinema has teased that a new film is in the works by sharing an Instagram post where it looks like Jason Voorhees is trying to get in contact with them.
This is looking very promising. Which is surprising, because the franchise has been bogged down by various issues for a long time. Thirteen years have passed since the release of the previous film. A sequel to that one didn’t get off the ground because, since the 2009 movie had remake elements in it, it required a deal between New Line Cinema and the franchise’s former home Paramount. The studios didn’t want to split the profits a second time. Then New Line’s parent company Warner Bros. offered Paramount the opportunity to make as many Friday the 13th movies as they could over a span of five years, in exchange for Warner Bros. getting to take Interstellar from Paramount. Paramount just kept Friday the 13th in development hell during those five years and managed to make zero new movies. Then came the drawn-out lawsuit between Cunningham and screenwriter Victor Miller over the copyright to the original Friday the 13th. Miller ended up winning the copyright within the United States.
Since Miller has the copyright, he and Cunningham would have to come to some sort of agreement with each other before a new movie could go into production (without one or the other threatening to file another lawsuit). Earlier this year, Cunningham said that both sides of the argument are “really dug into foxholes. They’re not going to throw any grenades, but I don’t think anyone is going to call for peace talks.” But if New Line Cinema, Roy Lee, and Sean S. Cunningham all now have hope that we’re going to get a new Friday the 13th soon, a deal must have been made.
Are you getting excited to see a new Friday the 13th go into production? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.